Butler National Golf Club

ARTICLES ABOUT BUTLER NATIONAL GOLF CLUB BY DATE - PAGE 4

In an effort to promote the Lemont to people attending next year's Western Open, a Professional Golfers Association men's tournament, the village is considering hiring a public relations firm. Recently, the P.G.A. announced the 1991 Western Open would be played at Cog Hill Golf & Country Club in Lemont instead of at the Butler National Golf Club in Oak Brook. At a village board meeting last week, Mayor Joseph Forzley asked the trustees to think about employing someone to promote Lemont in conjunction with the golf tournament.

The Age of Aquarius now has been enshrouded in the gathering dusk. Michael Butler is on his way to bankruptcy court. It was not scripted to go this way for a man who shared champagne and rubbed mallets with royalty on splendid polo fields around the world, who squired beautiful and celebrated women to discotheques and lavish parties, whose forebears built a business empire in Chicago and then created the clubby residential cachet and corporate prestige...

If former Western Open champions Tom Watson and Mark McCumber are any indication, PGA Tour pros shouldn`t dread coming to Cog Hill next summer. Watson and McCumber gave Joe Jemseck's Dubsdread course a test Monday, and the site of the 1991 Western received high marks. It wasn`t because they gave par a beating in an 18-hole round for the Chicago media. Watson shot a par 72, while McCumber finished with a 73. "On the ninth hole, I said this is a U.S. Open-type golf course," said Watson, who won his first PGA Tour tournament in the 1974 Western at Butler National.

Michael Butler, the 64-year-old Oak Brook bon vivant and scion of one of Chicago's most socially prominent families, has filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy code. The action, long the subject of rumors among the silver-haired Butler's associates at the financially troubled Oak Brook Polo Club, was attributed to the softening of the market for real estate development, one of Butler's many pursuits. Butler, known as the "hippie millionaire" during the 1960s, when he wore his locks fashionably long and produced the musical "Hair," filed the bankruptcy petition late Monday after making his customary Sunday afternoon appearance at the polo grounds, where he played in an exhibition match between the United States and England and, friends said, gave no sign of the impending move to reorganize his financial affairs.

Like most members of the Illinois PGA Hall of Fame, the scope of Bill Ogden's influence on golf in Illinois doesn`t begin and end at one country club. The long-time head professional at North Shore Country Club has watched 40 of his former assistants advance to head pro positions. And more are moving up every year. Ogden's contributions will be recognized Sept. 14 when he is one of the eight inductees into the Illinois PGA Hall of Fame. "I`ve been in the golf business since I was 12-13 years old, said Ogden, six times Player of the Year in Illinois.

If Butler National Golf Club doesn`t change its stance on admitting women, Cog Hill's Dubsdread stands ready. It's anybody's guess what Butler will do. The club's members are saying only "no comment" for now. But if Butler-host to the Western since 1974-refuses to allow women members, Dubsdread might come to the Western Golf Association's rescue. "Of course, we`d be interested," said Frank Jemsek, president of Jemsek Golf, which runs Cog Hill and several other Chicago-area courses.

Though ABC Sports spans the globe, sometimes it decides to avoid a spot close to home. According to a network source, its corporate golf outing has been scratched upon discovery that the site-a Long Island, N.Y., country club- is all-white. The decision is understandable since ABC is a central character in a tragicomedy surrounding golf, corporate America's favorite sport, and perhaps surrounding business in general. It stems from this week's inadvertently trail-blazing Professional Golfers Association Championship at Shoal Creek, which was an unabashedly all-white country club in Birmingham, Ala. Club founder Hall Thompson became an unwitting catalyst for social change with inflammatory remarks about why the club refused membership to blacks.

Denis Savard shot an 84 in the first round of the Illinois Open on Friday, but even a 64 wouldn`t have been the former Blackhawk's most memorable round. Savard, playing in the 41st Illinois Open on a sponsor's exemption at Midlane Country Club in Wadsworth, would have needed quite a round of golf to top his round on June 29 at Butler National Golf Club in Oak Brook. The 29-year-old Savard was playing in a member-guest event at Butler and had just finished nine holes when he got the news he had been traded to the Montreal Canadiens for Chris Chelios.

A golf course often gets leftover land in residential golf communities. But not at Stonebridge Country Club. Architect Tom Fazio, who designed the Aurora course, lobbied hard-and apparently successfully-for prime space. The 18-hole course, located on Eola Road just south of Interstate 88, features groves and rolling hills that almost seem out of place next to the adjacent cornfields. "We`re really lucky in this part of the country for land like this," said Stonebridge head pro Bob Malpede, a McHenry native who has returned to the Chicago area after five years at Columbine Country Club in Denver.